


Cardinal Red

by brightblackholes



Category: Fall Out Boy
Genre: Colors, M/M, fall out boy creation challenge, fobcc
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-17
Updated: 2016-08-17
Packaged: 2018-08-09 07:43:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 950
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7792855
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/brightblackholes/pseuds/brightblackholes
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>"Patrick is many colors: the soft baby blues of his eyes, a tan the color of grains of sand on the beach, the deep purple that always appears in Pete’s dreams right before he wakes up.  But mostly, Patrick is red."</i>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Written for the Fall Out Boy Creations Challenge on tumblr for August 2016.  The prompt was Patrick + cardinal red.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Cardinal Red

Pete sees the world in shades of gray. It’s hard to find colors when he’s surrounded by gray skies, gray buildings, and gray feelings pressing in on him from all sides. After a while, he learns to look for the splashes of color in the people around him and let them paint over his grayscale backdrop.

Joe brings him a lot of yellows, like the colors of the flowers Pete asks fans to bring to their earliest shows.

Andy is usually a deep green, the kind that comes from the needles of pine trees. Steady, dependable.

Patrick is many colors: the soft baby blues of his eyes, a tan the color of grains of sand on the beach, the deep purple that always appears in Pete’s dreams right before he wakes up. But mostly, Patrick is red.

Not a pale red, like the early morning sunrise, or a deep crimson, like the color of _A Fever You Can’t Sweat Out_. Patrick gives Pete the vibrant red that’s present in bird’s wings on Christmas cards against a backdrop of pure white snow.

When Pete first hears Patrick sing, his voice is red. It’s a bit shaky and a bit soft, but there is power behind it and a quality to it that knocks Pete off his feet. It’s a sound that refuses to be ignored, and Pete wants to listen to it forever. He decides that night that red is his favorite color.

When they play shows, Pete feels the red energy in the air around Patrick. He is captivating even though he tries to hid behind hats and the microphone stand. Pete presses against him and lean his forehead against his singer’s neck, allows his lips to brush over the skin there. When he pulls away, the area he touched is bright, blazing red.

When they argue, the words are red. They hurt and sting and Pete pauses as they fly through the air because they're also so very, very beautiful. Nothing Patrick creates could ever not be beautiful. The red of bird’s wings leave him in tears after Patrick storms out, and the red of bird’s wings envelopes him when Patrick slips into his bunk later and hugs him as part of the apology. Pete doesn’t let him take all of the blame, and Patrick smiles at him again, and Pete feels the red pumping through his veins into his heart.

When they go to a party and there is alcohol and bass lines resonating in his chest and Patrick is laughing, Pete can see the red even though everything else is hazy. There is a girl hanging around him and Patrick is listening attentively and she flutters her eyelashes and touches his arm and Pete has never known red to be an unpleasant color, but now it burns in his lungs and he has to take a step outside to compose himself until his vision is back to a hazy gray. Gabe finds him and presses another drink into his hand and Pete lets himself be distracted by bright purple and beer pong and tries to keep cardinal red out of his vision. For a brief moment, he contemplates the benefits of being color blind.

When they kiss for the first time, Patrick’s lips are red. It’s almost too dark to see, in a small room with the lights off, but Pete hears the red in their hesitant breaths and feels the red when finally, finally, _finally_. When Patrick pulls away, he sees red in the glint of Patrick’s eyes, and even though Patrick doesn’t say anything and Pete is afraid to break the silence Patrick’s smile is red and when his hand closes around his wrist it’s red and when he whispers a question and Pete nods, it’s more than enough and everything is red, red, red.

When they move beyond kissing for the first time, the red nearly blinds him. Patrick’s lips are still so, so red, and so are the marks Pete leaves on his chest and the feeling of fingers tugging at his hair and the noises that escape Patrick’s mouth that are just as beautiful as the music he makes. Pete is overwhelmed with the bright, blinding red, and when he finishes he allows himself to sink into it and be immersed. They’re too hot to fall asleep this close, but Patrick is the one who pulls the blanket over them and nestles in closer, and the scorching temperatures remind Pete of the red of bird’s wings and he really doesn’t mind at all. He falls asleep listening to Patrick’s breathing, and when he closes his eyes all he can see is the vibrant red against his eyelids.

When Pete wakes up next to Patrick in the same bed for the first time that actually matters, the golden sunlight streaming through the window and kissing bare skin would paint anyone else in a soft yellow, but Patrick is still cardinal red. He looks soft, and since there is no one else to catch him Pete lets himself gaze. He has the color cemented into his memory already from all of their years as friends and bandmates and _maybesomethingmore_ , and it’s comforting how some things never change, like their dedication to the music, and their friendship, and the fact that Patrick will always be the first contact on his speed dial and the singer will always pick up when he calls. Like how Joe provides Pete with a lot of yellows, the same color of flowers, and how Andy gives him a green as dependable as pine needles that stay on trees year-round, and how Patrick will always be the red of bird’s wings.

**Author's Note:**

> If you want to like/reblog this on tumblr, go to themaevethcometh and look under the fobcc tag


End file.
